If you've never heard of Photosynth nor seen it you may be wondering what it is. Well, imagine you visit somewhere and take a bunch of photos of "it" from lots of different angles. Then you let the Photosynth synther synth them. What this does is it breaks all the photos down into little fragments. These fragments are used to figure out where the pictures were taken from in relation to the subject and one another. These bits are all then stitched together into a single, semi-3-dimensional panorama that retains this spatial knowledge. You can then navigate around this panorama exploring the subject from different angles and also still view individual, original photos from the set too! And the great thing is this is done by using the power of your PC to generate the synth bits combined with the Photosynth web server farm to deliver the right images to your friends, family and the world! The other cool thing is that only the data needed to render the parts of the image you are currently looking at with the resolution and zoom level you currently have are downloaded (using a technology known as 'Seadragon') so your download experience is optimised.

For everything you need to make your own synths and to explore some of the amazing synths already created by individuals and organisations like the BBC and National Geographic (who have done a great synth of Stonehenge in England) just visit the Photosynth.net web site. If you previously had a version of the Photosynth viewer installed it is recommended that you uninstall that first.

Tips for viewing synths:

The better the graphics performance of your system the better your experience.

Don't forget to use the scroll wheel on your mouse - it gives you a Silverlight-deep-zoom-like experience.